Are there rules against bringing your gun to school? Then yes, you should be fired. What is the “violent type” by the way? If they have engaged in violence at school, they should be disciplined or expelled.
If it had just been one error, I’d say let him off with a reprimand and set him back a year or two on raise/promotion/tenure.
But he not only brought a loaded gun to school in a ‘backpack’ (I assume they mean ‘knapsack’), but that means:
- he hadn’t unloaded the gun when leaving the range where he was shooting target practice;
- he’d carried the loaded gun home, apparently loose, in a knapsack;
- he didn’t put the gun away in a secure location when he got it home;
- he didn’t put it in any non-secure place (such as a drawer in a bedside table) where he’d at least know where it was; and
- in the days between taking the gun home and inadvertently bringing it to school, he never once verified that he knew where it was.
That’s a pretty long list of things he should have done but didn’t, or shouldn’t have done but did. And if he’d done any of those things correctly, he wouldn’t have brought a loaded gun onto school property. It took a great deal of carelessness just to set up that possibility. And that’s why I’d recommend firing him. He shouldn’t have been one careless action away from unknowingly bringing that gun to school with him to begin with.
I’m the original absent-minded (ex-)professor, which is one reason why I probably shouldn’t own a gun of any sort, but I’m a hell of a lot more careful than that with my circular saw, which (aside from cars and the lawn mower) is the only potentially dangerous object I own. I unplug it if I set it down for more than a few seconds, and I can always tell you exactly where it is. And I wouldn’t dream of buying a gun unless I was ready to be equally diligent with it.
If he’s carrying it in his backpack, he must have a concealed carry permit.
Therefore, he should also be aware that carrying a weapon on school property is illegal. Someone who carries a concealed weapon should always be aware of where it can be carried.
If he got fired, I simply can’t bring myself to feel bad for him. He did it to himself when he violated the trust his state put in him when they issued him a concealed carry permit.
In fact, if I were the state, I’d withdraw his permit immediately as he has proven himself untrustworthy to have one. It sounds Draconian, yes, but one of the things that I have learned is that you take on a greater level of responsibility when you have a license to carry, and if you’re not prepared to assume that responsibility you shouldn’t have that right.
Yes. Concealed carry, like driving, is a privilege, not a right. You have the right to own a weapon, yes, but when the weapon is on your person you are not allowed to make any mistakes. That’s the responsibility that comes with the right.
Hey that’s a shame that this guy lost his job but that’s life. He screwed up and now he has to take the consequences.
What if some kid found his pistol and accidently discharged it into a fellow students forehead? No one will care about the 11 years of safe gun handling that preceded.
Guns should be feared and/or respected just like a car, a table saw, or any other dangerous piece of machinery. What fuels the outrage is when people who own them act irresponsibly.
Absent mindedly leaving a gun around the office like it was your morning danish definitely qualifies.
I don’t know about firing, but a suspension is definitely in order. And maybe a caning by the other teachers in the main hallway.
It’s just stupid to not realize there’s a gun in your backpack, especially if you put it there.
He could have just as easily left the gun unattended in the classroom. What if he had needed those books in his class, and brought the backpack in there? I think he’s lucky that getting fired is the worst thing that happened.
I’d like to know why other teachers were looking into someone else’s bag? Doesn’t this get to anyone else?
That said though how do you forget a loaded handgun in a backpack, then how do you put books into said pack and not notice it? I still think somethings up then if he did put books into the pack and didn’t see it how did someone else happen to see it without really going through the pack?
I think the gun free school zones law is somewhat naive though well intentioned but I think the teacher was grossly neglegent and I would not protest his firing.
I make it a point to never use luggage or knapsacks for guns. I have special cases and a range bag for guns and amminution. This reduces the chances of me doing something stupid like inadvertantly carrying a gun or ammunition to a prohibited place. Still when I fly I shake out all my luggage before packing just in case something found its way in there.
I noticed that too, Edward.
While it was an invasion of privacy, that invasion is mitigated by the fact that he brought a loaded weapon to school in violation of the laws of Pennsylvania.
As with any story, I think parts were left out. Perhaps the gun was printing through the bag, or perhaps they could actually see it inside the bag.
The big question is this: Does your right to privacy trump the school district’s right to search people at will? Given metal detectors and random locker searches, I would tend to say no. Historically, schools have been exempted from having to get warrants to search students, and I suspect that this is the rationale they used to search the teacher’s bag.
I understand that. However even when someone is at fault for an accident they aren’t necessarily branded as an irresponsible driver.
Marc
I was wondering about that, too, and of course can’t prove my hypothesis, but my guess is that they were looking for some ID so that they could return it to its owner. I’ve found lots of stranded things, and if I can find some identification on it, I’ll make sure it gets back to whom it belongs. Wallets, purses, dayplanners, knapsacks… you name it, people will occasionally leave them behind on accident. I’ve always assumed that they’d want them back.
My take on this is that the teacher did deserve to lose his job over this. It’s mere happenstance that no one got hurt because of his carelessness, and as RTFirefly helpfully listed, he made several key mistakes before bringing the gun in. With the permit to carry a gun comes the responsibility to handle it correctly and safely, and he didn’t do that. With his teaching position came a responsibility to provide a safe environment for his charges and colleagues, and he didn’t do that, either. Much more than a little mistake, to me.
How do you know? Were you able to look inside every package, backpack and briefcase carried on a school ground by an adult since Dunblane?
Out of idle curiosity, I ask, “Who says he absent-mindedly brought it to school?”
If the answer is, “Why, he, of course.” I then laugh loud and long.
There is no mention whatsoever of firearms in the faculty handbook.
I’d rather be fired than attacked.
The type who set his girlfriend on fire because she didn’t do his laundry at the proper time.
It has been made clear on more than one occasion that this won’t happen, and that there is nothing we can do about the ones who come in from the jail because denying them an education is ‘discriminatory’.
There’s a difference here. Cars are for driving. While some people are killed by cars, and while driving cars, the purpose of a car is not to cause harm.
Guns are a different story. The sole purpose of a gun is to be used by a person to cause harm to something, be it a target, an animal, or another human.
I used to be anti-gun. Then I met several responsible gun owners, and changed my stance to anti-idiots-with-weaponry. This teacher is an idiot. He’s a lucky idiot, though, in that no one started fooling around with his gun, and no one was hurt or killed.
I’m strongly pro-gun rights, and I’d have fired this clown. As other’s said, this wasn’t just one mistake. The list of things this guy did wrong is long.
And I don’t buy the, “Oh, I forgot the gun was in my backpack” argument. Who forgets that they have a loaded gun in a backpack? And in any event, he would have said something like that regardless of why it was really there. What’s he going to say? “I brought the gun because I don’t trust the murderous little bastards I have to teach, and I want to be ready to shoot one of them”?
Just for the record, California (where I live) has a “loaded gun” law which prohibits people from carrying loaded firearms unless they have a permit to carry loaded. A permit to carry concealed in California is also a permit to carry loaded. I don’t know if Pennsylvania (where the teacher made the blunder) has a loaded gun law or not.
In any case, if you’re going to carry concealed, you sure as heck should not carry that handgun loose in your knapsack. You should carry it in a concealed holster on your person, where you can feel its presence and reach for it quickly. The whole point of concealed carry is to have a gun available for immediate self defense (without having to show the world “look everybody, I have a gun” in the mean time). If you’re not going to go to that trouble, then you should unload your handgun and carry it in a locked case. Anything else, anything between these two extremes, is just plain irresponsible.
They are if they were engaging in reckless driving when the accident occurred.
We do not. A license to carry concealed firearms only has relevance to carrying concealed, not whether or not the gun can be loaded. Under Pennsylvania state law, open carry is legal without a license. Open carry refers to a properly holstered gun that is not in any way concealed by any clothing; it must be completely in plain sight on the person who is carrying it.
Some local jurisdictions have ordinances against open carry, but the state does not.
You’re right that if you’re not going to keep the gun on your person it should be unloaded and cased for transport.